902 RUSSIA: A History and an Interpretation
the electorate, and in Saratov merely 8 per cent. The municipal council elected the municipal executive board and the mayor. The mayors of the larger cities were confirmed in office by the minister of the interior, and those of the smaller cities and towns by the provincial governor. In the 1870's the new municipal institutions were introduced throughout the empire, except in Poland and Finland, which retained their original city government.
The functions and powers of'the municipal institutions were similar to those of the zemstvos. They were to deal primarily with local economic needs, had no executive power to enforce their decision, were limited in the right to levy taxes, were burdened with heavy "obligatory" expenditure unrelated to municipal affairs, and were subject to oppressive controls by Crown officials.
With all their glaring inequities and shortcomings the zemstvos and the new city government were from the point of view of both theory and practice a marked improvement on their predecessors. In place of the medieval principle of representation by social class ("estate") they introduced that of property qualification, generally accepted in nineteenth century Europe. Moreover, the new system proved workable; and, in spite of their many disabilities, the new municipalities, and especially the zemstvos, eventually succeeded in building up public services on a scale Russia had never known.
THE JUDICIARY
"The statutes of the judiciary (sudebnye ustavy) of November 20, 1864, would never have been enacted if it were not for the emancipation of 1861," wrote S. I. Zarudny, one of the authors of the reform. "No real need for equitable courts existed under serfdom. The only true judges then were the noble landowners over whom ruled a supreme and arbitrary authority. They had to accept its decision; but in their hands was concentrated the power over the immense majority of the people! Lynch law was the method used by the peasants in settling their grievances against their masters. After February 19 even our higher bureaucrats perceived the necessity of speedy and equitable administration of Justice." Russian courts before the reform of 1864 were notoriously inequitable and corrupt. Their chief characteristics were the inhuman severity of punishments; multiplicity of judicial agencies; complexity of the procedure which allowed cases to drag en for decades; sectecy and arbitrariness equal to that of the Star